


The Future That Never Was

by kyanve



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Revision of history, Ulaz is a good spy who can't avoid the occasional temptation to backhandedly throw shade, Zarkon is a bored old dragon, espionage nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 21:10:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13689876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyanve/pseuds/kyanve
Summary: Getting in exercise and practice against training drones was one of Ulaz's few outlets for a break while infiltrating the command center, except when it drew the attention of a bored Emperor.





	The Future That Never Was

There were very few with any rank on the Command Center that didn't have, and maintain, combat training. It was a small blessing that it honestly would've been slightly more suspicious for Ulaz to not keep a routine of some time spent around the training decks; time to practice and keep his own skill sharp and time to step out of everything for a little while, to just focus on taking apart practice drones. 

It worked well enough as a routine break, a way to keep his head clear.

It wasn't particularly private, but that had some benefits; it meant earning a degree of wary respect from the rest of the upper echelons of the Empire, something individual and separate from simple avoidance of anyone associated with the Druids. He'd grown used to ignoring any audience, keeping his focus on the drones. 

He had also, long ago, grown used to tuning out how Zarkon would occasionally filter through, watching and keeping track of his upper command. Ulaz kept odd enough hours that it didn't happen often when he was there, and usually with the good luck that Zarkon had someone specific he was taking an interest in or prodding at to test or train. The Emperor only focused his energy on rare individuals, but that didn't preclude stepping in occasionally on some upper commander or another to hone their existing training. 

He had expected that sooner or later, Zarkon would decide to drift through without a specific agenda when he was there. He noticed quickly enough that he had the Emperor's attention, but there wasn't really anything to do for it but continue on as if nothing had happened. Once the drone clattered to the ground in pieces, he stepped back, checking the sword he was using before sheathing it, finally turning away from the practice space to salute.

"My liege." He stayed still until Zarkon returned the salute, freeing him to walk off the field where he had water set aside waiting. 

"You have an impressive level of talent. There are not many in medical or the other research areas that devote more time than the minimum to combat skills, but you could best some of my commanders." 

"You flatter me, sire; it may be unusual here, but on outer territory ships, where there's less between the medical bays and combat fronts, it's mere pragmatism." He took a drink, only barely looking over; Zarkon was in a good mood, there wasn't much to worry about.

"Your humility is a thin cover." Zarkon wandered over to a rack closer to the wall, inspecting some of the practice blades that did not have a live edge, testing balance. "I hope it would not take too much time out of your work to indulge me for a round."

From everything Ulaz had heard from military command staff and the Blades who'd gained a high enough military rank, Zarkon's occasional fits of boredom and pique were almost a rite of passage. There was probably nothing at risk but time, some scuffs and dents in armor, and a few vicious bruises. Ulaz shrugged, setting aside the military sword he'd been using against the drones to pick up one of the practice blades himself. "I think I can spare some time." 

Zarkon made a quiet noise of amusement, stepping into the marked-out field; it had drawn some attention, and the beginnings of an audience that was trying to pretend they weren't sidling over to watch.

At first it was tentative, a few tests back and forth, nothing landing; Ulaz was not about to let this go passively, and Zarkon was faster on his feet than he looked. 

Ulaz did catch the moment of something like amusement where Zarkon finished gauging. It wasn't a long moment, and turned immediately into a fakeout lunge, closing distance and redirecting with only a glancing tap on Ulaz's parry before the overhand strike swerved into a lower swipe. It was the last time he had a chance to think before he was hard pressed, struggling to find rare openings to strike back. He ended up off his feet and scrabbling to avoid getting pinned long enough to get back up more than once, pushed off-balance from a parry, tripped after a feint, caught in the ribs by a riposte. There was only one solid hit to his side of the tally, and five glancing that only barely counted. 

His sword flew back to hit the wall behind him after another lunge shifted into a hard blow to his wrist, then a metal boot connected with his chest, and then he was on the ground with the point of Zarkon's practice blade over his throat.

It registered to him, staring at the ceiling, that if they'd been fighting with live blades, he'd be short a hand now. 

There was a low, pleased huff as Zarkon withdrew the practice sword, offering Ulaz a hand up. He took a brief tick to catch his breath before he accepted it, levering back to his feet. 

It wasn't an unexpected outcome; he hadn't heard of anyone _winning_ a sparring bout against the Emperor. 

He was not going to be the one to break the record of Zarkon's occasional sparring partners coming out of it with a tally of bruises and welts, either. There were strokes anyone else would've had to fully commit to that Zarkon had managed to turn into feints and redirects, others that had been enough to throw Ulaz off balance that didn't have much room for momentum. It spoke to a terrifying amount of both strength and control, enough that Ulaz was certain he'd have broken bones if Zarkon hadn't been holding back. As it was, he was testing to make sure there wasn't anything wrenched or dislocated before he walked over to retrieve his sword from where it'd fallen. 

The audience was starting to break up and scatter, none of them particularly wanting to risk getting reprimanded for wasting time gawking, although he did catch a few impressed stares as the various officers dispersed; he was sure he'd be hearing enough later to tell if he'd lasted longer than the usual record. 

"Where were you from again, specialist?"

"The outer territories, toward the fringe, sire. " He wasn't entirely sure he hadn't managed to wrench an ankle; he tested weight on it, and concluded he'd need to check on it later. 

"Interesting." Zarkon was checking over the practice blade. "Where did you learn swordsmanship?" 

It was a question that made Ulaz uneasy, even if Zarkon's tone was perfectly amiable and he had his back to Ulaz. Ulaz leveled the blade he'd just retrieved, sighting down it at nothing in particular to check that it wasn't bent. "Initially, from a few retired soldiers around the colony I grew up in. After that, normal basic, and some of the other officers on ships I'd served on." Large parts of it were true, and he had a solid enough documented record of service after he'd joined the military as a medic on infiltration duty. 

Zarkon made a thoughtful noise, replacing the sword he'd used on the rack. "It has been some time since I've seen even elements of Kav-tak." 

"Come again?" The confusion was mostly genuine, although Ulaz had heard a similar word, reconstructed out of some old and heavily corrupted record files; it was a little too much to hope for coincidence.

"Was there a name attached when you learned some of your evasions and strike stances?" 

"No, milord; it was just what I'd learned at the colonies. There wasn't much of any history attached." An easy enough cover explanation for a conversation that still had decent odds of being as close to small-talk as anyone ever got from Zarkon.

Zarkon was definitely considering that. "To be expected, I suppose. Most of the order it originated from was destroyed in the early days of the Empire; casualties of conflicts with the remainders of the Alteans." 

'Casualties of conflicts' didn't specify which side had killed them, and what few fragments they had managed to piece together suggested it was not the side Zarkon would want him to assume. 

Ulaz nodded, listening with interest. "Then there was a tradition attached, once?"

He was rather fond of breathing, and not a rank amateur at his job. 

"To put it lightly. It was... an act of pragmatism, itself, in the old history of the homeworld." Something where Zarkon was one of the few creatures that remembered it. The old history of the Galra before the Empire was a subject Zarkon rarely entertained, but Ulaz had apparently managed to catch some kind of rare fit of nostalgia. "The religious sect that created it was not martially inclined, but a temple with valuables and occasional wandering dedicates required some skill at self-defense." 

An entire history lost for ten thousand years, and one of the few that still knew anything of it was the one responsible for its destruction. 

"I'm afraid my mentor knew nothing of it; the frontiers have a way of stripping everything down to barest necessities." Ulaz examined the length of the practice sword more closely; it was mostly straight, but there were definitely new dents in it. "This is the first chance I have had to hear of the history." 

Dealing with Haggar on a regular basis meant he'd been around Zarkon often enough, but usually as a background element when the Emperor came in to fetch her or check after something she was working on. He'd never had Zarkon's specific and undivided attention before. From what Antok had said, it was possible sometimes to keep him talking when he got like this, but it was unpredictable, and easy to accidentally remind Zarkon of some old grudge he was still carrying. 

The reverie snapped into a bemused focus; Ulaz maintained his inspection of the practice blade, quietly burying any unease. Zarkon was more likely to give warning if his mood turned lethal than Haggar, but that didn't mean he gave a great deal of signs if he was testing and circling. Ulaz barely made out the first part of a quiet mutter - "Of course one who works with the Druids would," the rest too quiet to be intelligible. 

Apparently, he had not pushed past Zarkon's patience for reminiscing. "They were mystics - scholars and diviners. The temple they originated from was a library carved out of a set of caves along a deep canyon, filled with texts and relics gathered by travelling dedicates. They spread out when we took to the stars, and had a few other monasteries and outposts by the time Daibazaal fell. Unfortunately, their stores and archives made them prime targets for those who sought to control us."

A far more egregious lie of omission from the one that had the most stake in controlling the Galra as a people.

He gave a thoughtful nod, settling the practice blade on the rack alongside the others. "It is tragic how much has been lost that way, over the ages." It didn't take any faking to sound quietly mournful of everything lost to their people, and acting like a believer in the Empire's sanctioned version of history was a survival necessity on the command ship.

It didn't hurt that after a few decaphoebs around Haggar and the Druids, he could be relaxed and at least act unguarded around just about anything. He was standing right next to Zarkon at that point, testing the wrist and hand Zarkon had caught in that last disarm. 

"A tragedy indeed, even if it is one our people have survived and rebuilt from." As thoughtful as Zarkon sounded, Ulaz doubted he really mourned the old order much. "It is a shame that there is nothing left of the original great library; there is little recognizable even on the more intact pieces of Daibazaal." 

There was an actual layer of real bitterness Ulaz hadn't expected; every story of the last days of Daibazaal that came out of the Empire was incredibly suspect, detailed firsthand accounts were actively destroyed, and it was unquestionable fact that Zarkon wanted the full story buried and gone. It was not hard to read between the lines on that and what the Blade had managed to find on some things; they had long ago figured out that the other races the Galra had fought at the time were scapegoats, an imaginary external threat to rally the race against so Zarkon could solidify power and justify harsh retribution against any dissenting opinions. 

But with the way Zarkon spoke of Daibazaal's destruction, the first explanation Ulaz could think of was 'what did you fuck up so bad that you had to go that far to hide it'. 

He was still fond of breathing, however, and could certainly channel the sense of lost history while shoving the editorial commentary under the rug. "I'm sure it would have been something to see." 

The wreckage of Daibazaal was occasionally patrolled but mostly abandoned, an entire sector of space that was little more than a graveyard. Earlier in their history the Blades had investigated the area for anything that might be left; after a few centuries they had relative confidence that anything intact had been salvaged or looted long ago, and let the area be as a memorial themselves. 

It was tempting to see if he could keep Zarkon talking, but he was far too aware of how much of a potential minefield it was, and how much of a precarious position he was already in by working directly with Haggar; he didn't particularly need to give the Emperor reasons to pay more attention to him and potentially piece together that he was not a loyal servant of the Empire. He took a moment to check his computer. "Unfortunately I should be returning to the labs; there should be a new data set on one of the projects shortly that I will need to document, if I may take my leave, sire." 

Zarkon regarded him for a moment. "You are dismissed, specialist. I know how testy she gets with delays." 

Ulaz snapped a salute with a level "Vrepit sa" before he turned to gather his things and leave. There would be other Blades with better chances to stay around upper command and possibly winnow bits out of the Emperor's odd moods, ones that were not already minding the High Priestess's personal attention. Later he would need to document and report on it; it was definitely not entirely truthful, but there might still be clues for their archivists and historians. 

It had been an odd interaction all around, and the more Ulaz thought on it, the more he suspected he'd just been a diversion for a bored immortal that had been isolated long enough to no longer remember how to have a normal conversation. He knew Haggar had decided his straightforward lack of fear, in contrast to most of the other Galra, was amusing and useful; knowing the way higher politics went, it was likely that there were few around Zarkon that were not either intimidated, scrambling to curry favor, or both. Galra were not meant to exist in isolation; whatever Zarkon had become, there was apparently enough of that lingering for occasional fits of seeking some kind of social contact. 

It was almost pitiable, if it weren't a Hell Zarkon had created and maintained himself.

**Author's Note:**

> This was almost part of a larger fic-in-progress, but didn't contribute to the plot there, hence reworking it as a one-shot. The title's a Powerman 5000 reference - "The dream that you dreamed about, it never came - so look back and turn around, who's to blame".


End file.
